Re: Brief descriptions in menu entries
> Point was, it is not necessary to convert Debian to accomplish what
> the GenericName proposal wants. IMO it would be better to have KDE
> improve its menu handling... integrate with the existing system; and
> have an RMB on an item pop up a menu with actions for viewing the apps
> docs, looking at the dpkg and apt views of the package the app comes
> from, looking at the docs of the package, etc.
There are two separate discussions here.
1) Adding genericname to the current menu system;
2) Replacing the current menu system with .desktop files.
Chris is not suggesting (2) simply as an implementation of (1), but
rather as an extension that also allows for translations and other
goodies that come with .desktop files.
Btw, regarding (1), I certainly don't want menu-methods to look up
manpages to get genericnames. Not only is it an ugly solution but it's
not at all clear how it will extract this generic name - even just the
manpage title is generally too long and too specific, and is not
tailored for menu entries.
As for (1), i.e., just adding a genericname field to the current system:
this is completely painless. If a menu-method is not updated, nothing
will break (and indeed some menu-methods won't be updated since they
won't use genericnames). If a menu entry is not updated, nothing will
break. If a window manager doesn't support or doesn't want to support
genericnames then they don't have to.
And moreover it's quite simple to implement. Menu-methods that do want
to use genericnames will find it a simple addition (e.g., the KDE
menu-methods would just write the extra field to the generated .desktop
file).
Ben.
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